Or as Mitch Williams overly-twitched last night…“FRANCISCO LIRIANO HAS NEVER BEEN CONSISTENT!”
Still, what Liriano has managed to do since his first start on May 11 has been particularly remarkable. He entered Wednesday night’s game against the Giants with a 1.75 E.R.A. over six starts, 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings, and just 3.5 walks per nine. He’d struck out at least seven hitters in five of the six. He’s been every bit the ace the Twins once believed they had, and the Pirates had to ...
Already in an ornery mood after his team followed a five-game winning streak with a four-game losing skid, the manager became agitated and went on a lengthy rant about his team’s struggles in general when asked about Howard’s place in the lineup.
“How many runs did we score last night?” Manuel said of a 3-2 defeat. “[Howard] knocked in one of them. What the [bleep] are you getting at? Who’s going to hit there? Let me ask you a question. Let me turn ...
John J. O’Connor, manager of the St. Louis Federal baseball team, is to test the legality of organized baseball in the federal courts.
The petition…charges that the National baseball agreement is a violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. The legality of the “reserve clause” in baseball contracts is attacked.
This wasn’t the lawsuit that resulted in the exemption, but it’s interesting to me that there were multiple cases from the Federal League that were about ...
In an era of high salaries and impossible ticket prices, athletes interrupting play to engage in bench-clearing brawls over perceived slights and ambiguous rules is selfish, dangerous and dumb. Teams should apologize to fans who have to witness it. Baseball should join other leagues in creating rules to prevent it.
You liked how the Dodgers showed teamwork and fight in pounding the Diamondbacks along their dugout rail? Then you could not complain ...
The epochal boom of the sports card industry in the US can be traced back to 23 February 1989, when Upper Deck – an upstart producer of classy baseball card collectibles based in Anaheim, California – delivered its first case of individually wrapped card packs to George Moore of Tulsa’s Baseball Card Store in Oklahoma. Upper Deck’s cards differed wildly from those of their competitors. Topps, Fleer and Donruss had long traded ...
Gerrit Cole’s fastball is at the center of everything when it comes to evaluating what the Pirates’ top pitching prospect is. And that was certainly true Tuesday night at PNC Park, where a crowd of 30,614 allowed themselves to marvel at the heat coming out of the hand of Cole, who made his major league debut a successful one largely on the strength of that pitch.
“Well, there’s late life to it,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said when it was all over, Cole had his first major ...
That’s the puzzling thing about this. The media is busy whining about baseball games lasting nearly three hours, but isn’t at all concerned about football games almost never lasting less than three hours. You rarely see the same level of outrage about the lengthy commercial breaks in an NFL game. Or the disruptive huddles between every play. Or the timeouts. Or that the clock stops for an incomplete pass. Or when a player runs out of bounds. Or when there is a penalty. Or when there a break at ...
“The Major League Baseball season will begin in Sydney next March, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks set to play two games at the Sydney Cricket Ground.”
As Jose Bautista came to the plate as the second hitter of the game, Steve Stone noted that Bautista was the rare slugger in the No. 2 hole. He couldn’t really explain it, but that didn’t stop him and Hawk Harrelson from attempting to discredit it.
Stone: One of the reasons why Bautista’s hitting second—and we wondered about that—was that Alex Anthopoulos, their general manager, feels that the best hitter in your lineup should hit second. And this is a guy that ...
The Nationals traded right-handed reliever Henry Rodriguez to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for right-hander Ian Dickson. After three years of hoping Rodriguez would develop into a dominant and consistent power arm in their bullpen, the Nationals have finally and completely parted ways with him.
Here’s the most unusual promotion from the minors this season: Beer vendor Vince Rainey has been called up from the High Class A Florida State League by the Washington Nationals.
Does this include November 13, 2008…the day he was dealt to the Yankees?
“He’s entrenched with Ohio State,” Chun said.
There was no mistaking Swisher’s loyalties earlier this spring when the Indians did a Harlem Shake video, featuring him in a No. 33 James Laurinaitis jersey – or a Nick Swisher 33, as he calls it.
In expressing his excitement over receiving the uniform from the university, Swisher described his reaction as only he can.
Ryan Howard being on pace for just 18 home runs this season:
“That’s just unacceptable. Is he healthy? I would think Ryan Howard would hit 18 home runs if his eyes were closed.”
Ryan Howard’s approach at the plate:
“His job is not to go up there and work the coun. Hey in the eyes of a lot of people he earned his $20 million, that’s just the way baseball’s played today, but you got to have a guy that can make some contact sometimes when you got a ...
Kunio Shimoda…I hear the Trost - Levine regime is hiring.
After months of denial and an inexplicably huge surge in home runs, Japan’s baseball chiefs have admitted they secretly switched the design of the ball to make the game more exciting.
Players and fans had repeatedly quizzed Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) bosses after seeing a 40 percent rise in the number of balls that were slugged out of the park so far this season.
In April NPB said the specifications of their ball—each of which ...
Richard C. Klegin has announced an international baseball league in Europe.
Teams have already been formed in London and Paris, and the proposed league will include also Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Monte Carlo, Milan, and Nice. Klegin has leased the stadium in London. The players hail from the United States.
This is a terrific idea, Mr. Klegin. I suggest you start in, say, the summer of 1914.
Also, yes, the newspaper really was called “The ...
SO IS REDS MVP ZACK COZART. He drove in four last night.
SO IS REDS MVP BRANDON PHILLIPS. He drove in all six last night. To some of our loyal flock here, that means mostly that he was damned lucky all those people got on base in front of him. To others, it means that without BP (and, yes, those others) The Club loses, 2-0.
Guess which camp I’m in, win fabulous prizes chosen just for you.
RBI matter, K? They matter the same as runs scored, because each is equally dependent upon the other, ...
Puig remained on the ground for a few minutes and the cameras showed that his nose was bleeding, but he wiped away the blood and stayed in the game. Pretty sure I would have stayed in the fetal position for good 36 hours had I taken a 92 mph fastballs to the face.
As an added bonus, Zack Greinke hit Miguel Montero with a pitch to leadoff the next half-inning, presumably in retaliation. Both the benches cleared and there was a lot of yelling, but nothing more. It was over within a minute and ...
In 1985 the players, in a rare major concession to the owners, agreed to change the arbitration eligibility from two years of major league service to three. After the union’s younger members expressed their outrage at the change, the union, in the 1990 negotiations, got the time needed changed.
The 17 percent of the players who had the most service between two and three years would be eligible for arbitration. They became known as the Super 2’s. In the last negotiations, in 2011, that ...
I accept responsibility for those two uhh three uhhh four uhhhh five days.
Andy Pettitte locked up his 250th career win this past weekend against the Mariners. It now could be said the win also locked up his Hall of Fame candidacy, something that many thought was dead and buried after his retirement in 2010.
The naysayers will point out how Pettitte is the anti-Hall of Famer. He is good, not great. He is more a model of consistency than dominance. You could even point out the advantages ...
We’ve been discussing Ian Stewart and his complaints about still being in the Cubs organization in this FanPost, but there’s new information Tuesday afternoon that I believed warranted a front-page post.
In the Tribune, Paul Sullivan summarizes the issue and quotes general manager Jed Hoyer:
Triple-A Iowa third baseman Ian Stewart faces a fine and possible suspension by the Chicago Cubs for his Twitter rant about his status in the organization.
Part one of a three-part examination of the Red Sox advance scouting system.The Red Sox are smart. What makes them smart isn’t a sabermetric slant. It’s a willingness to find and use any information they can find which can give their players an edge.
This isn’t exactly how Gerrit Cole wanted it, but the 2011 No.1 overall draft pick finally gets what he thought he deserved a couple of months ago — his first major league start today for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
....
Cole will face the visiting San Francisco Giants, plugging a hole in what has been a solid Pirates rotation but has been hit by injuries to Wandy Rodriguez and Jeanmar Gomez.
The former #1 draft pick throws in the high 90s, but he hasn’t been missing bats this season: 47 Ks ...
Smith was hitting better than .300 in early June 1983, but his drug use was intensifying.
“I did cocaine and pot mostly and I was even starting to drink,” Smith told the Associated Press in March 1984. “That was a bad sign because my father was an alcoholic and still is. I saw what it did to him and I had stayed away from that. But avoiding alcohol left me wide open to drugs.
“I started in high school in Los Angeles … It progressively got worse. The ...
Rossiter [Pennsylvania] claims to have staged a world’s record baseball game in number of runs, hits, errors, and umpires in the contest here yesterday between Upper and Lower Rossiter for the championship of the town.
...
At any rate, the Lower Rossiter team was victorious in the sixteenth inning, the score being 112 to 98. The game consumed five hours, and fifty-seven players were used by both sides.
During the game 42 home runs, 53 triples, 73 doubles, and 74 ...
It is June 10 and Ryan Howard has seven home runs in 231 trips to the plate. Seven home runs used to constitute a good week for the slugger. Among full seasons, his previous low for home runs on June 10 was ten in 2010. His .185 isolated power this year is 90 points below his career average and his .306 weighted on-base average nearly matches his output last year when he was hobbled by his Achilles.
The biggest and most obvious change is that Howard struggles ...
“Buck Buck”, “Johnny on the Pony”...we used to just call it “####### Pile-On”.
Chris Russo of SiriusXM Radio tweeted: “The truth is Ryan Braun is a cheat, we already knew he was a cheat, and he threw that tester under the bus to save his own rear end. Truth.”
Anthony Witrado of The Sporting News, a former Brewers beat reporter, was asked on Fox Sports Radio if Braun was guilty of using PEDs.
“Yes, and I’ve thought so since the news first came out,” Witrado said. “I thought that this denial ...
After the game, Maddon came out swinging against Lackey.
“So he intentionally hit him when he did, there’s no question in my mind that he did, and the sad part is that I’ve always considered Lackey a good teammate, but right there he can get one of his own players hurt,” Maddon said.
“I really did sense among the group of Red Sox that they were totally not into that moment because they knew it was inappropriate to hit Matt on purpose, and furthermore because one of them can ...
